Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons^™

Delta Air Lines Strategic Audit, Victoria Diersen, Rebecca Koppelman, Nicholas Lauver, Aaryan Naik, Drake Vorderstrasse

Honors Theses

This case study focuses on Delta Air Lines, a prominent company in the airline industry. We conducted a strategic audit utilizing theories and principles central to strategic management to complete the case study. Our research used publicly available information that included the company’s website, SEC filings, news articles, and industry analysis. The goal of this case study is to collect and analyze data, apply strategic management concepts to a contemporary organization, and evaluate the firm’s potential for competitive advantage.

We looked at many factors for Delta Air Lines, including firm analysis, industry analysis, external analysis, internal analysis, performance analysis, competitive …

Lockheed Martin Strategic Audit, Trevor Deboer, Gunnar Lombard, Sam Nelson, Tj Taylor, Paul Wynegar

Honors Theses

Abstract

This case study explores Lockheed Martin, a global leader in defense contracting. Our team performed a strategic audit using the theories of strategic management. Our research was pulled from various sources, including Lockheed Martin’s website, SEC filings, related news articles, and relevant industry analysis. The goals of this case study revolved around collecting data and performing analysis to evaluate Lockheed Martin’s potential for competitive advantage in the airplane and parts manufacturing industry.

Some of the various analyses performed on Lockheed Martin include firm analysis, industry analysis, internal analysis, external analysis, competitive dynamics, business-level strategy, corporate-level strategy, and exploring their …

Covid-19 And Management Scholarship: Lessons For Conducting Impactful Research, Gerard George, Gokhan Ertug, Jonathan P. Doh, Johanna Mair, Ajnesh Prasad

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for management scholars to address large-scale and complex societal problems and strive for greater practical and policy impact. A brief overview of the most-cited work on COVID-19 reveals that, compared with their counterparts in other disciplines, leading management journals and professional associations lagged in providing a platform for high-impact research on COVID-19. To help management research play a more active role in responding to similar global challenges in the future, we propose an integrative framework that emphasizes a phenomenon’s impact, the conditions that the phenomenon creates at multiple levels, and the responses of actors …

How Technology Affordances Of Sharing Economy Platforms Influence Cultural Distance And The Affective Commitment Of Immigrants At The Base Of The Pyramid, Jie Yan

Hunt Institute Working Paper Series

Within the immigrant population, there is a sub-group at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). Compared to others, BoP immigrants receive lower incomes, have weaker informal networks, and face greater resource constraints. As more and more BoP immigrants participate in the sharing economy, we suggest that the use of sharing economy platforms by BoP immigrants would have a significant impact on their integration into a new country because it would influence cultural distance and affective commitment in multiple ways. Hence, in the present study, we seek to explore the relationships among the technology affordance of sharing economy platforms, the cultural …

Entrepreneurial Orientation And Organizational Performance: Exploring Moderated Curvilinear Relationships, Gang Fan, Mengge Li, Derrick E. D’Souza

Hunt Institute Working Paper Series

Empirical investigations of the EO–firm performance relationship have typically focused on small and medium-sized ventures and have relied on survey data. Will the shape of the relationship curve hold for firms that moved past the ‘ventures’ phase? Our study investigates a sample of 11,843 small, medium, and large publicly listed firms drawn from the COMPUSTAT database. We confirm the existence of a U-shaped EO-performance relationship, and our analysis offers new evidence on the role of EO in SMEs versus large firms. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our sample of SMEs displayed lower levels of EO than large firms, and large firms …

Idiosyncratic Deals For Single-Parent Employees And The Role Of Socio-Economic Diversity In Converting Them Into Formalized Policies, Tanushree Chatterjee

Hunt Institute Working Paper Series

Single-parents are an increasing demographic of employees within many industries who warrant special attention. This study aims to analyze customized work arrangements negotiated by single-parent employees with their supervisors, known as idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), which improves the quality of life in their work/family domains. The results can be extended to an organizational level of analysis, where the cumulative work-family enrichment is used to predict the usage of formal family policies among single-parent employees. This will help bridge the gap between individual experiences of single-parent employees and the overall perspective of the organization on promoting a better work environment for single-parents.

Time And Change: A Meta-Analysis Of Temporal Decisions In Longitudinal Studies, Helen Hailin Zhao, Abbie J. Shipp, Kameron Carter, Erik Gonzalez-Mulé, Erica Xu

Management Faculty Publications

Longitudinal research has grown in popularity in the field of management and organizations. However, the literature has neglected to consider the important ways in which researchers' temporal decisions can influence observed change in longitudinal studies. Researchers must make a set of temporal decisions to capture change, such as the temporal precision of the hypothesized form of change, the selection of a sample that is expected to exhibit the change, the choice of variables to be measured repeatedly, the frequency of measurements, and the time interval between measurements. However, these decisions typically are based on "educated guesses," which makes their effects …

The Estimation Of Production Functions With Monetary Values, Jesus Felipe, John Mccombie, Aashish Mehta

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

For decades, the literature on the estimation of production functions has focused on the elimination of endogeneity biases through different estimation procedures to obtain the correct factor elasticities and other relevant parameters. Theoretical discussions of the problem correctly assume that production functions are relationships among physical inputs and output. However, in practice, they are most often estimated using deflated monetary values for output (value added or gross output) and capital. This introduces two additional problems—an errors-invariables problem, and a tendency to recover the factor shares in value added instead of their elasticities. The latter problem derives from the fact that …

Reproducibility In Management Science, MiloˇS Fišar, Ben Greiner, Christoph Huber, Elena Katok, Ali I. Ozkes, Hannah H. Chang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

With the help of more than 700 reviewers, we assess the reproducibility of nearly 500 articles published in the journal Management Science before and after the introduction of a new Data and Code Disclosure policy in 2019. When considering only articles for which data accessibility and hardware and software requirements were not an obstacle for reviewers, the results of more than 95% of articles under the new disclosure policy could be fully or largely computationally reproduced. However, for 29% of articles, at least part of the data set was not accessible to the reviewer. Considering all articles in our sample …

Ozgene: To Advance Humanity – Inspire Curiosity, Maarit Patrick, Mike Dixon

Huntsman School of Business Teaching Scholarship Series

The case introduces the students to Ozgene, an Australian firm that experienced a dramatic reduction in lead time of their products because of implementation of Lean principles. The case can be used in undergraduate or graduate courses in operations management or supply chain management as an introduction to Lean principles. The case also encourages students to consider the challenges that make-to-order differ from those of make-to-stock and explore production design principles.

Investing In Textbook Affordability Pays Off For Students, Janelle Wertzberger

All Musselman Library Staff Works

Investing in textbook affordability can have a huge payoff for students—just ask Assistant Professors Alice Brawley Newlin and Marta Maras in the Management department. Their open, customized textbook for Statistical Methods (MGT 235) is completely free. It has been used by over 400 students and saved them an estimated $150,000! The story of how this remarkable outcome was achieved has its origins in Musselman Library. [excerpt]

Value Beyond Borders: Moderating Effects Of Global Owners On The Negative Relationship Between Fdi And Sanctions Intensity, Maeve Walsh

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This research explores, with a large dataset, how global owners moderate the negative relationship between foreign direct investment and sanctions intensity. To explore the impact different factors have on subsidiaries, the top ten Japanese pharmaceutical companies’ data was collected over five years. This research describes the methods utilized to collect the data from the Japanese pharmaceutical companies, followed by the statistical regression used to analyze the outcomes. Finally, the data explores international business implications from the analysis.

Migrant Flows: Humanitarian Operational Aspects Of People In Transit, Sameer Prasad, Harish Borra, Jason Woldt, Nezih Altay, Jasmine Tata

School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Millions of workers in India who migrated to cities for employment have transited back to seek refuge in their home villages, causing disruptions in both cities and villages. This type of mass flow of migrants in transit represents a humanitarian crisis. Understanding migrant flow patterns and ways to ameliorate the conditions for migrants in transit is critical to managing the humanitarian crisis. In this study, we develop a model that examines the influence of migrant networks, inter‐organizational collaboration, and environmental uncertainty on locational advantage, which, in turn, predicts migrant flow patterns. This study contributes to the humanitarian operations management and …

Stronger Together: Building Nonprofit Resilience Through A Network With A Shared Mission And Organizational Humility, Haley M. Woznyj, Oscar J. Stewart, Tammy E. Beck

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Nonprofit organizations increasingly face surprising and disruptive shocks, beyond financial setbacks, that challenge an organization's operations, long-term survival, and success. To continue to execute their mission, nonprofits must be resilient. Despite the importance of resilience in nonprofits, more research is needed to understand the factors that build organizational resilience and how leaders can help promote resilience. We conducted a qualitative case study, consisting of 23 interviews with organizational members and key partners, fieldwork, and archival information, of a documented resilient nonprofit organization. Our findings suggest that leaders can enhance resilience by gaining access to resources through collaboration, which is in …

Generating Variance Analysis Models Based On Responsibility Centers, Craig M. Sorochuk

Department of Computing and Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Correcting For Range Restriction In Meta-Analysis: A Reply To Oh Et Al. (2023), Paul R. Sackett, Christopher M. Berry, Filip Lievens, Charlene Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Oh et al. (2023) question a number of choices made in our article (Sackett et al., 2022); here we respond. They interpret our article as recommending against correcting for range restriction in general in concurrent validation studies; yet, we emphasize that we endorse correction when one has access to the information needed to do so. Our focus was on making range restriction corrections when conducting meta-analyses, where it is common for primary studies to be silent as to the prior basis for selection of the employees later participating in the concurrent validation study. As such, the applicant pool information needed …

When Identities Collide: Organizational And Professional Identity Conflict And Employee Outcomes, Kathryn Ostermeier, Peter Anzolitto, Danielle Cooper, Julie Hancock

Management Department Faculty Journal Articles

Purpose

While many workers have both professional and organizational identities, which can have conflicting expectations, little is known about this specific and common form of identity conflict. The purpose of this research is to develop and test a measure of organizational and professional identity conflict (OPIC), which the authors define as a psychological conflict that individuals experience between who they feel they are supposed to be in their organization and who they feel they are supposed to be in their profession. The authors theorize that this identity conflict will lead to emotional exhaustion and psychological distress, further leading to turnover …

Managing Goal Heterogeneity In Strategic Initiatives, Erim Ergene, Steven Floyd, Seray Ergene

Management Department Faculty Journal Articles

Strategic initiatives are temporary group undertakings designed to renew organizational capabilities and are crucial to organizational performance. Despite the inherent goal heterogeneity stemming from individual, departmental, organizational, and initiative levels, research conceptualizes goals as unitary within the team. Our objective is to explore ways to manage goal heterogeneity for the successful development of strategic initiatives within the intraorganizational context. We argue that organizational controls and decision comprehensiveness can be effective in mitigating the negative effects of heterogeneity. This will help facilitate a group of individuals in behaving as a team and being committed to the agreed-upon task at hand. We …

An Investigation On The Role Of Positive Psychological Constructs On Educational Outcomes In Business Schools, Eileen Kwesiga, Katharina Spraul, Baniyelme D. Zoogah

Management Department Faculty Journal Articles

Business schools are increasingly interested in empowering students to be more competent and driven for social changes through service learning. However, studies examining the role of positive traits and cross-cultural differences of service-learning education are limited. As a result, we leveraged positive psychology reasoning to explore the relationship between positive behavior as indicated by compassion, ethical leadership, perceived supervisory support and service-learning benefits for students (N = 272; n = 59 teams) in the United States of America (U.S.) and Germany. We used hierarchical linear modeling (2-Level model) to find main effects of relational compassion, ethical leadership, perceived supervisory support, …

Mattel Strategic Audit, Ellie Anderson, Samuel Gertner, Logan Connealy, Julia Michner, Chris Payant

Honors Theses

This case study focuses on Mattel, Inc., a prominent company in the toy industry. To complete the case study, we conducted a strategic audit utilizing different theories and principles used in management. We conducted significant research using publicly available information, including the company’s website, SEC filings, news articles, industry analysis, and more. The goal of the report is to analyze data and use a real-world company to apply management concepts.

We looked at many factors for Mattel, including industry analysis, external analysis, internal analysis, performance analysis, competitive dynamics, business level strategy, and corporate level strategy to complete the case study. …

The Effect Of Firm-Controlled Store Type Touchpoints On Customer’S Discrete Emotions: An Exploratory Study On Physical Store & Online Store, Jyro B. Triviño

Leadership and Strategy Faculty Publications

Customer experience is a broad and multi-dimensional phenomenon, which currently divides academic scholars in terms of constructs and measurement. This study aims to examine some acceptable yet under-measured customer experience constructs already developed. The comparative exploration of the physical store and online store firm-controlled touchpoints seeks to identify differences or similarities in customers’ perceived affective response, which can help firms improve their current touchpoint design. Set in a business-to-customer context in the Philippines during a Covid-19 community quarantine, a total sample of 338 respondents evaluated their recent interaction during the purchase stage. A causal-comparative exploratory research design was utilized using …

Supervisor Gender, Culture And Employee Creativity: The Mediating Role Of Interaction Frequency, Holly Chadwick

Honors Projects in Management

Despite the fact that women have consistently proved that they excel through transformational leadership styles (Eagly, et al., 2003; Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001), a type of leadership that drives creativity in individuals, they remain underrepresented in organizations globally (Michalidis, et al 2012). Thus, it is important to understand how creativity is influenced by leadership, and how leadership is influenced by gender and frequency of supervisor-employee interaction. This study utilizes a self-reporting survey which was distributed to several companies involved in federal direct investment within China. The countries accounted for in the study were Germany, Japan, and South Korea, and results …

Challenging Perceptions: Actual Vs Perceived Generational Differences In Workplace Concepts Conducted During Covid 19, Jacob Slide

Honors Projects in Management

With three different generations in the workforce (Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z), it is important for managers to understand what each generation expects in the workplace. This is especially important when managing intergenerational teams. As the only true digital natives enter the workforce, employers must select managers who can manage the conflict that arises from differences, actual or perceived, that often stem from poor communication and a lack of understanding. This study, grounded in Generational Cohort Theory and replicating the Lester et al. study conducted in 2012 with Baby Boomers, Gen X, and Millennials, aims to examine whether participants’ …

Margin Variance Analysis For Informing Customer Engagement Strategy, Timothy J. Smith

Association of Marketing Theory and Practice Proceedings 2023

A margin variance analysis measures the sources of difference in gross margins between pieces of business within a larger set of business. When the piece of business is defined as the the total sales to an individual customer over a period of time, sales and marketing managers can use this analysis to define customer specific engagement strategies to improve customer profitability. In this paper, we clarify how customer engagement strategies can be driven by a margin variance analysis, provide derivations of two equally-valid forms of a simple customer margin variance analysis, and demonstrate the margin variance analysis and the development …

When Normal Is Not Normal: A Theory Of The Non-Linear And Discontinuous Process Of Desired Change And Its Managerial Implications, Richard Boyatzis Dr., Udayan Dhar

Faculty Journal Articles

Desirable change may appear chaotic, slow, or not sustainable. We may expect linear, continuous change, but it eludes us. Measurement and statistical analysis about behavior change often requires data showing continuity and having normal (i.e., Gaussian) distributions. When we encounter phenomenon that does not fit this expectation, we seek to transform the data to render it compatible with our method of analysis. We move from actual behavior to perception of it through surveys or transformations of the data. We believe this ignores “naturally” occurring data and what it says. Such techniques are convenient for statistics but may hide important features …

Better To Be Loved By Some? Firm Flaunting As An Impression Management Strategy, A. Erin Bass, Michael D. Pfarrer, Ivana Milosevic, Varkey K. Titus Jr.

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

Firms can use a range of proactive impression management behaviors to reduce the impact of a negative event on firmoutcomes. When a negative event is unpredictable, we theorize that firms can engage in ostentatious behaviors that display the firm’s affluence and robust resource base. We term these behaviors “flaunting,” and we present a twopart model that investigates how flaunting can reduce the impact of an unpredictable negative event on firm outcomes and why it is effective at doing so. In part one, we theorize how flaunting can generate net positive stakeholder group evaluations by enhancing distinctiveness among stakeholder groups. In …

Gender-Based Impacts Of Covid-19 In Sub- Saharan Africa, Helen Onyeaka, Phemelo Tamasiga, Ifeanyi Michael Mazi, Hope Akegbe, John K. Osiri

Department of Management: Faculty Publications

The lasting educational and economic impacts of COVID-19 have disproportionally disadvantaged girls on the fringes of society, extending beyond the period of imposed lockdowns. This study delves deeper into the education, socio-economic, and gender-specific effects of the COVID-19 pandemic within the context of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The research illuminates how the pandemic has influenced economic activities and the roles of teachers, parents, and students in the educational process. Furthermore, the paper examines the efficacy of distance learning across diverse media in SSA. The findings suggest that children from rural settings might have limited resources to adapt and continue their education …

The Managerial Factors Influencing The Retention Of Firms' It Capability, With Some Global Implications, Jinho Kim, Kayoung Park, Timothy Komarek, Li Xu

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

Researchers have explored firms’ IT capability and its effects on business performance, yet the factors influencing the long-term retention of this capability have not been fully investigated. Therefore, our study examines what managerial and financial factors influence the retention of firms’ IT capability by utilizing survival analysis. The results show that IT executives’ managerial power does not contribute to retaining the firms’ IT capability. However, the change of IT managers can introduce fresh insights and expertise to an organization, enabling firms to maintain their IT capability, and the degree of retaining IT competency in firms can vary based on industry-specific …

Theoretical Modeling For Curious Leadership And Instrument Development And Validation For Measuring Curious Leader Capacity, Lisa M. Gick

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

When curious, we admit we do not know. With the contemporary workplace emerging through increased complexity, leaders are compelled to shift mindsets and practices from more traditional methods to those more in service to the uncertainty of the day. The purpose of this mixed-methods study was to generate an integrated theoretical framework for curious leadership, a validated scale for its measurement, and practical methods for engaging differently in the context and practice of leading. Drawing from the literature review of relational leadership, adaptive leadership, complexity leadership, growth mindsets, and curious behavior, and from my practice, 12 sub-constructs were identified as …

Landscaping Wellness At Work: A Participatory Model For Worker-Centered Health, Anya Helena Piotrowski

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This study contributes to a body of scholarship that demonstrates the benefits and need of employee-driven and defined wellness at work processes. This participatory action research study brought together a team of employees within a remote-work, start-up organization to define and design a process for implementing wellness at work for their organization. Through a participatory process that allowed outcomes to emerge from the group, employees identified opportunities to foster embodied wellness in their organization in three core areas: organizational, personal, and cross-boundary initiatives. Through a reflective collaboration, employees generated ideas and developed a plan to address employee-identified priorities that will …